Article counting and filling



Feb. 12, 1952 E E, L KS 2,585,558

ARTICLE COUNTING AND FILLING Filed Dec. 5, 1946 3 Sheets-Sheet l 72 I QI -r" Ir Jv 90 I INVENTOR.

L I .E LdbGQ' BY M5,

Feb. 12, 1952 E, LAKSQ 2,585,558

ARTICLE COUNTING AND FILLING Filed Dec. 5, 1946 3 Sheets-Sheet 2INVENTOR.

.Lahsai Feb. 12, 1952 E. LAKSO ARTICLE COUNTING AND FILLING 3Shee'tsS'neet 5 Filed Dec. 5, 1946 INVENTOR. E .5. Laban BY M PatentedFeb. 12, 1952 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE ARTICLE COUNTING AND FILLINGEino E. Lakso, Fitchburg, Mass.

Application December 5, 1946,'Seria-l No. 714,236

11 Claims.

This. invention relates, to feeding n counting, delivering, andpackaging articles. such as tablets, pills, capsules, nuts, and anyother smallarticles .of similar nature.

Theprincipal object of the invention is to provide an automatic machine.for filling containers with accurately counted and undamaged articles atarapid rate froma mass of articles as, for in- ;taince, delivered from.ahopper or traveled on a Further objects of the invention reside in theprovision .of an. automatic. machine comprising means for delivering acontinuous and constant flow of articles, means to aline the articles ina plurality of chutes in edge to edge contacting re lation, thelastnamedmeans including a mechanism comprising alternate fixed and rotatablefingers upon which the articles fall and between which the articles are.alined, the articles then proceeding to a plurality of chutes in whichthe articles are counted by automatic means and in single file thearticles are then deposited automatically in containers traveled in lineone after the other in a direction transverse to the individual chutesand parallel to a bank of chutes.

Still further objects of the invention reside in the provision of .anapparatus as above described including vibrating means to shake thecontainers to settle the contents thereof and new and improved stoppingarrangement so as to position P bottles accurately under the chutes incombination with means moving containers "from chute to chute so eachchute deposits a certain fraction of the total contents of eachcontainer and as the line of containers moves, one container or inmultiples, issue from the machine in filled condition while newcontainers enter the machine completely empty giving a continuousautomatic action so that the containersissue from the machine singly orin multiples in filled condition.

Other objects and advantages of the invention will appear hereinafter.

Reference is to be had to the accompanying drawings in which Fig. l is aview in side elevation of a machine embodying the invention, parts beingin section;

Fig. 2 is a view in front elevation of the machine of Fig. 1, partsbeing in section, and parts being broken away;

Fig. 3 is a top plan view with parts omitted for the sake of clarity;and

Fig. 4 is a perspective exploded detail view of a part of the device.

Reference is hereby made to my co-pending application S. N. 641,561;filed January l6, .1946,.and

now abandoned, disclosing a machine having in general similar objectssof the invention, the present case, however, representing a considerableimprovement over the aforementioned copending case.

With reference tQFigs. l and 2, the present invention comprises aframework Ill which may be mounted on a table or base frame not shown. Thisframework is. provided with a bracket 12 at theupper portion thereofwhich supports a roll or rolls I6. carrying a-conveyor belt 18 in thedirection of the arrow in Figs. 2 and 3. The articles to be counted andfilled'progress along this belt being supplied to the belt as, forinstance, from a hopper such as disclosed inmy co-pending application S.N. 541,792; filed June 23, 1944, and now Pa e t NO- 2,4 9,395grantedSeptember 14, 1948. Arranged just-above. the, top, run of belt is thereis provided an-angular fence 20;, see particularly Fig. 3, this fencecrowding the articles in a direction toward a downwardly inclined apron22 down which the pills fall in substantially equal amounts from end toend of the apron, this steady flow of articles in uniform amount beingdue to the .angularity .of fence 20.

The framework Ill supports at spaced points pillow-blocks or bearings 24rotatably mounting a shaftifion which is mounted a brush 28, shaft 26being driven as, for instance, by a pulley or the like 28. Framework inalso rotatably supports a shaft 30 which maybe driven by a sprocketchain 32, it being noted that the brush 28 rotatescounter-clockwisewise, as-seen in Fig. .1, and shaft 30 rotates in thesame, direction. Shaft 30 has securedthereto. a plurality Of Wheels 34each of which is provided with a narrow, peripheral rib 3.6, these ribs,of course. rotating at the speed of shaft 30.

Mounted on a member 38 supported on the framework l0 there are, aplurality of arcuate fingers or ribs 40 which are fixed and stationaryand are made on an arc to closely fit the periphery of the wheels 34,fingers 4!! being alternately arranged in spaced relation with thefingers or ribs 36 on the wheels, this arrangement being clearly shownin Figs. 2 and 4. It will thus be seen that ribs 36 rotate, and fingersor ribs 40 are stationarily. mounted, and the pills falling down apron22 .fall upon the ribs 35 and 40. Since these fingersor ribs arebevelled in to a V-shape the articles gradually shake down on theiredges between the fingers as is clearly illustrated.

The brush 28 agitates the articles and prevents them from piling up andspillin over so that any :article which does not happen to fall downonto its edge will be thrown back by the brush as long as is necessaryto finally cause such article to follow the others into edge to edgerelation as above described.

It is to be particularly noted that the alternate fixed and rotatingribs 36 and 40 present alternate moving and stationary fingers so thatthe eifect is similar to one in which the alternate fingers or ribs wererotating in opposite directions and it has been found that by makingsome of the ribs stationary and theothers rotating in one direction theapparatus is considerably simplified and the alining effects arerendered in full.

The frame H3 also mounts a bracket or bar 42 upon which may be mounted aseries of chute bars 44 down along which the articles A fall as bygravity. These chute bars are provided with face plates as at 46 tooverlay the articles and prevent them from falling out to the left asseen Fig. l, the plates 48, however, being spaced so that the operatorcan easily determine whether or not the chutes are full. Plates 46 havea tongue and groove aligning connection at 41 with curved plates 49secured to the ends of ribs 40, and each plate overlays two rows ofarticles A. Scraper blades 5! are secured to bracket 4-2 and extend intoclose scraping contact with the peripheries of wheels 34 between theribs or fingers 3B, 49, to form means taking the articles from thewheels, see Fig. 4. Each rib 36 is provided with a lateralchannel-shaped article guide 53 having a V out therein to closely followthe rib contour to form the chute sides in combination with bars 44, andit will be seen that each chute is four sided and is formed by a bar 44,plate 46, blade 5|, and a leg of a channel-shaped guide 53.

The bar or bracket 42 also provides a guide for a spring pressed plunger48 there being one of these plungers at each chute. Plungers 48 arepressed to the left in Fig. l as by means of a spring and by means of afinger '52 the plungers are drawn to the right away from the articles Aby means of a linkage 54 operating similarly to a like device in thefirst aforementioned of the co-pending applications. description of thisfinger is thought not to be necessary inasmuch as it is fully describedin my co-pending case; however, the function of this finger is to comeforwardly under resilient pressure of the spring at timed intervals tostop the articles above it from descending any lower and the purpose ofthis article-stopping device will be further described below.

At the bottom of the chute, I provide an oscillating bar 55 mounted torock by means of a link 58 on a pin or pins 59, this link beingin turnoscillated by a cam shown in dotted lines at 60 through the action of alever 62. The bar 55 is provided with a series of pairs of convergingchutes as most clearly seen in Fig. 2 at 64. Each pair of chutes islocated to deposit two rows of articles in a single container 66 so thatif ten articles are deposited on each chute at a time the result is thattwenty articles are deposited at each operation through the agency ofthe double chutes in the bar 56. Bar 56 is actually a gate and as shownin Fig. 1 ten articles A are stopped by this gate between the latter andthe fingers 48. Articles above the fingers 48 will be stopped therebyand as the gate "56 is oscillated to aline with chute 44 the tenarticles shown in Fig. 1 will drop into container 65. It is to beunderstood, of course, that each time the gate oscillates a double rowof articles descends into each of ten containers so that at each oscil-Further iii) lation of gate 56 two hundred articles are deposited,twenty in each of ten containers 6B. The angularity of chutes 64 asshown in Fig. 2 is due to the fact that the containers 66 may be of awidth wider than necessary for the construction of all of the chutes inthe machine and if necessary this gate may be replaced by one havingchutes at different angles for thinner or narrower containers.

The containers are progressed parallel to the bank of chutes 44 in stepby step relation on a conveyor belt 68 and it will be seen that as eachbottle issues from the right hand end of the machine as shown in Fig. 2,such bottle will be filled with two hundred pills if the bottlesprogress from station to station, i. e., chute to chute, as defined, orwith one hundred pills if the bottles advance at each step two stations,skipping every other station and receiving twenty articles at each offive stations. In the latter case, the containers are advanced andejected in pairs.

In order to stop and properly position the containers I provide astopping device, see Fig. 3, which comprises a pair of bars l0 havingarms 72 at the ends thereof. These arms are pivoted at 14, see Fig. 1,and are spring pressed apart by a spring 18 below the pivots so as toforce the arms 12 inwardly toward each other to stop a desired number ofbottles in two banks. The arms are separated in order to allow thebottles to advance by a bellcrank I8 operated by cam Bil. The two armsin operate simultaneously to be withdrawn from each other due to a pinand slot connection as shown at 19, that is. there beinga slot in onearm between the pivots l4 and a pin on the other arm so that as one armis rocked away from the containers the other arm is similarly rocked inthe opposite direction also from the containers, this operation being intimed relation to the rest of the device.

This stopping mechanism may be moved to the right or left in Fig. 2 bymeans of a thumb screw Bil to allow for manufacturing variation inthicknesses of containers and it will be seen from Fig. 2 that the armsI2 extend through slots 82 in guides 84 which confine the containers toan in-line progress.

I also provide an oscillating means for shaking the articles down in thecontainers. This means comprises a pair of plates 86 positioned as acontinuation of guides 84 and connected to a base 88 which is pivotallymounted at 90 and is oscillated by a crank 52, see Fig. 1. Thisvibration is intended to be very rapid and of short stroke so that thecontents of the containers are not damaged nor jostled to too great adegree, but are merely slightly vibrated in order to settle the same inthe containers.

The conveyor 68 is continuous, and when the line of containers isstopped to receive the articles, thepassing conveyor imparts a vibrationto the containers not included between the stop arms l2, so that apreliminary shake-down occurs prior to the vibration by means 86.

The operation of the device will be clear from the above descriptiontaken in conjunction with the drawings, and the inventor will be seen toprovide a relatively simplified device for aligning articles fed theretoin haphazard position, counting the aligned articles, and depositing therequired amount in a row of passing containers, the action beingcompletely automatic from start to finish.

Having thus described my invention and the advantages thereof, I do notwish to be limited to the details herein disclosed otherwise than as setforth in the claims, but what I claim is:

1. In a machine of the class described, a rotary shaft, a plurality ofspaced peripheral ribs thereon, a plurality of spaced stationary ribs,the rotary and stationary ribs alternating in spaced relation, means tosupply unaligned articles to the ribs, means to receive the alignedarticles therefrom, the stationary ribs being arcuate and generallyconforming to the peripheral'ribs so that the ribs together present aseries of arcuate grooves each having a fixed wall and a moving wall.

2. The machine of claim 1 wherein the article supplying means isconstructed and arranged to be effective to flow said articles onto theribs in the general direction of rotation of the shaft.

3. In a machine of the class described, a series of generally parallelarcuate spaced ribs, a second series of arcuate ribs alternating withthe first series, the latter moving relatively to the second series,means to supply unaligned articles to the combined ribs, and means toreceive aligned articles therefrom, the ribs presenting a series ofarcuate grooves each of which has walls relatively oppositely moving.

4. In a machine of the class described, a series of parallel spacedribs, every other rib being continuously movable in a direction alongthe lengths of the ribs so that all the ribs are relatively continuouslymovable as respects the next adjacent ribs at each side thereof. andarticle supplying means and article receiving means associated with theribs, the said moving ribs being circular and the alternate remainingribs being fixed and arcuate.

5. The machine of claim 4 wherein the said moving ribs are substantiallycircular and the alternate remaining ribs are fixed and arcuate to thedegree of curvature of the circular ribs.

6. In a machine of the class described, a series of spaced rotatablerib-like elements, a series of fixed rib-like elements alternatingtherewith and spaced therefrom forming a series of grooves each of whichhas a moving wall and a fixed wall, and a chute for each groove incontinuation thereof, said chutes each receiving a, line of alignedarticles from the grooves, and

means supplying unaligned articles to the ribs and grooves.

7. The machine of claim 6 wherein the article supplying means flows thearticles onto the ribs in the same general direction as the direction ofrotation of the rotatable rib-like elements.

8. An article aligning device comprising a series of rotating wheelseach having a peripheral plane surface, an outstanding circular rib oneach wheel, a fixed rib conforming to said surface and overlying apartonly thereof to provide an arcuate article aligning groove between eachfixed and rotatable rib, the bottom of the groove being formed by thefree portion of the said surface, and means receiving aligned articlesfrom said grooves.

9. The device of claim 8 including a generally tangential surfacescraping blade engaging said surface and forming a part of said alignedarticle receiving means.

10. An article aligning device comprising a series of spaced rotatingribs and an alternating series of fixed arcuate ribs, all the ribs beingspaced to form article aligning grooves, and tangential means inextension of the arcuate ribs forming a wall of an article receivingchute for each groove.

11. The device of claim 10 including tangential means in extension ofthe rotating ribs and forming a wall of an article receiving chute foreach groove.

EINO E. LAKSO.

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the file ofthis patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 1,437,409 Evans Dec. 5, 19221,710,074 Saviano Apr. 23, 1929 1,874,442 Galloway Aug. 30, 19321,931,114 Olney Oct. 17, 1933 2,109,391 Lauck et al. Feb. 22, 19382,333,576 Aerr Nov. 2, 1943 2,336,676 Erikson et al Dec. 14, 19432,362,517 Woodberry Nov. 14. 1944

